Month: January 2019

In the water, it’s getting harder to breathe. Suffocating dead zones with little or no oxygen are pervading the world’s oceans, rivers, and streams. This phenomenon – which has exploded in recent decades – poses an extinction-level nightmare for marine populations already beset by a complex interaction of human-made menace. When it comes to

Scientists may have just taken a step towards experimentally proving the existence of Hawking radiation. Using an optical fibre analogue of an event horizon – a lab-created model of black hole physics – researchers from Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel report that they have created stimulated Hawking radiation. Under general relativity, a

If you look back far enough into Earth’s hazy, long-forgotten prehistory, things get weird. Like the battered face of the Moon, our own planet is covered in craters: a scarred legacy of millions of years of brutal, unforgiving asteroid impacts. What’s weird, though, is once you look back about 300 million years, the evidence of

Somewhere in the outer reaches of the Solar System, beyond the orbit of Neptune, something wonky is happening. A few objects are orbiting differently from everything else, and we don’t know why. A popular hypothesis is that an unseen object called Planet Nine could be messing with these orbits; astronomers are avidly searching for this planet.

Dogs may have stolen the Internet from cats, but cat memes endure – and many center on one theme: Cats are aloof jerks. The primary ambassador of this notion, naturally, is Grumpy Cat. But cats of all sorts, these memes tell us, desire to be left alone with their coffee, or demand darkness, or prefer

Lake Mercer, a subglacial lake deep below the Antarctic Ice, sat untouched by humans for millennia – until now. Scientists accidentally discovered the lake in 2007, when they were examining satellite imagery of Antarctica’s ice sheet. Then on December 26, 2018, they finally reached it. To explore the 50-foot-deep subglacial lake, researchers from a project

Technology companies have been pummelled by revelations about how poorly they protect their customers’ personal information, including an in-depth New York Times report detailing the ability of smartphone apps to track users’ locations. Some companies, most notably Apple, have begun promoting the fact that they sell products and services that safeguard consumer privacy. Smartphone

Black holes are great at sucking up matter. So great, in fact, that not even light can escape their grasp (hence the name). But given their talent for consumption, why don’t black holes just keep expanding and expanding and simply swallow the Universe? Now, one of the world’s top physicists has come up with an

A series of new animations by a NASA scientist show just how zippy – and also how torturously slow – the speed of light can be. Light speed is the fastest that any material object can travel through space. That is, of course, barring the existence of theoretical shortcuts in the fabric of space called wormholes (and

Looks like it’s time to change your passwords, again: security experts have flagged up a monster data breach made up of some 773 million email addresses and 21 million passwords. They’re calling it Collection #1, and more collections are reportedly on the way. First made public by security consultant Troy Hunt, the data dump

As the Cassini probe plunged into Saturn, it measured the gravitational pull of the rocks making up its iconic rings – and those readings tell us the rings might be a lot younger than we previously thought. In fact, they might have formed around the same time dinosaurs were walking the Earth, with scientists

It’s amazing what you can find when you do a good clear-out. Just ask chemistry researcher Alan Aitken. The scientist, from Scotland’s University of St Andrews, was rummaging through a storage area under a chemistry lecture room back in 2014 when he stumbled upon a unique relic of scientific history. Stashed amidst chemicals and

When you beam intense pulses of light into a thin circle, strange things will happen, according to new research based on the optical equivalent of a whispering gallery. Inside tiny loops of transparent fibre, waves of light can be forced to break step and change the orientation of their wiggle in odd ways, bending the

Unless you live in the tropical rainforests of South or Central America, most of the sloths you’ll encounter will be two-toed sloths (Choloepus sp.). This is because they are able to eat quite a varied diet and are therefore relatively easy to keep in captivity. Their relatives, the three-toed sloths (Bradypus sp.), on the

There really isn’t a whole lot you can do to avoid being eaten when you’re trapped inside an egg and your parents are nowhere to be found. Still, the embryo of the pharaoh cuttlefish (Sepia pharaonis) gives it everything it’s got. Researchers have found that when faced with a common predator, the unborn cephalopod does

Are you sick of nature? Always doing beautiful things at inconvenient times? Well, a Japanese satellite may be just the thing for you. Rather than forcing you to wait for one of Earth’s 22 or so natural annual meteor showers, it discharges an artificial one, on command. Well, in theory, anyway. But we’re about to

In just a few days, the Moon will turn a shade of rust and loom larger in the sky than usual in a relatively rare astronomical event. For the half of the planet fortunate enough to see it, it’s a chance to see two fascinating spectacles combined in what’s known as a ‘super blood moon’

Scientists searching for signs of seasonal storms on Titan have finally found the smoking gun. A slick shimmer spotted on the north pole of the Saturnian moon is the first evidence of rainfall in the hemisphere – the start of summer in the north. It’s the evidence astronomers have been waiting years to see,

The future of coffee production is looking darker than the contents of your morning cup of joe. A deadly combination of climate change, disease and deforestation is gradually pushing a multi-billion-dollar industry right to the edge. Researchers at UK’s Kew Gardens have calculated that out of the 124 coffee species known to science, nearly

The most distant object humanity has ever visited looks something like a spinning snowman or hourglass that’s lost in space. Researchers who work on NASA’s nuclear-powered New Horizons mission released a movie on Tuesday showing the rotation of the mountain-size rock, which is known formally as (486958) 2014 MU69. (It’s more commonly referred to as

An irresistible story swept the world of science and technology journalism Tuesday when China’s space program said that its Moon lander had sprouted a cotton seedling inside a sealed grow container — the first plant ever grown on another world. “China’s Moon mission sees first seeds sprout,” trumpeted the BBC. “Cotton seed sprouts in

The flowers are listening, according to new research – well, in a sense, at least. Scientists have found evidence that plants can actually hear the buzz of passing bees and produce sweeter nectar in response to entice the flying insects in. And flowers are technically their ‘ears’. Based on observations of evening primroses (Oenothera drummondii),

We’ve had chances. Lots of chances. But humanity has a history of squandering chances, despite everything we know about climate change. Despite everything riding on us addressing it. As it happens, the odds may still be in our favour. A new study estimates there’s a 64 percent chance that peak global average temperature rise

Will there be no end to people trying to muck up the night sky? Around this time last year it was a disco ball sent into low-Earth orbit. Now a Russian startup has had the colossally dense idea of sticking beaming billboards up there, to shine advertising back down to Earth. Putting aside the

It’s been compared to crop circles, or the strange handiwork of aliens. Others say it looks like the Moon, if it somehow materialised in the chilly waters of the Presumpscot River. But this massive churning formation in the city of Westbrook, Maine isn’t evidence of something from outer space, but rather a bizarre and

In recent years, the number of extra-solar planets discovered around nearby M-type (red dwarf stars) has grown considerably. In many cases, these confirmed planets have been “Earth-like“, meaning that they are terrestrial (aka rocky) and comparable in size to Earth. These finds have been especially exciting since red dwarf stars are the most common

The peculiar movement of gas at the galactic centre could be the smoking gun that finally leads astronomers to the most elusive type of black hole – the middleweight. Black holes are pretty hard to find unless they’re actively feeding (or colliding), since they don’t emit any electromagnetic radiation (except perhaps for Hawking radiation, which,

Some of the Universe’s deepest secrets are locked up so tight, a whole new kind of subatomic cataclysm is needed to tear them free. To unleash those kinds of forces, European physicists want to build a particle accelerator to rival anything we’ve seen, one that will make the famous 27 kilometre (16.7 mile) Large Hadron

In 2009, supermodel Kate Moss caused a stir when she categorically stated that “nothing tastes as good as skinny feels”. As jaw-dropping as the sentiment might have seemed to many, Moss’ pithy comment encapsulates a modern Western zeitgeist. From an evolutionary perspective, however, Moss’ statement is ludicrous, if not preposterous. Such a statement could

A frog by the name of Romeo, thought to be the last of his species, is no longer fortune’s fool. Defying the stars, this lonely amphibious bachelor has at last found his Juliet. Known as the world’s loneliest frog, for ten years Romeo has burned, he has pined, but he has not perished. His

It was promising to be an uncharacteristically warm winter day in Boston. The temperature on 15 January 1919, had soared to 40 degrees Fahrenheit from 2 degrees (4 degrees Celsius from -16) earlier in the week, prompting many downtown workers to head outdoors. Shortly after noon in the city’s bustling North End, as Model

China says it has grown the first plants on the Moon as part of its historic mission to the far side. China landed its Chang’e 4 spacecraft on the Moon’s far side on January 3, becoming the first nation to do so. It has now achieved another first: a seed successfully germinating while on the

Australia is sweltering through an intense heatwave this week that’s scorching the country from coast to coast with temperatures as high as 49.3 degrees Celsius (120.7 degrees Fahrenheit). In numerous locations, temperature records have already been broken, with minimum overnight temperatures in three towns of 33°C (91°F) showing even the night offers no escape

Supermassive black holes may be the gravitational glue that binds a galaxy, but they’re also a colossal puzzle. One mystery that has vexed astronomers: how do heck do black holes end up so roly-poly? Take Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole at the centre of the Milky Way. It is about four million times

The world needs to rethink its plan for addressing climate change. That’s the assertion of political scientist Joshua S. Goldstein and energy engineer Staffan A. Qvist. On Friday, The Wall Street Journal published an essay in which the duo argues that we can’t address the global climate problem as quickly as needed using just renewables

Here’s a funny one: genetically modified food. Okay, so maybe it’s not all that funny. But people’s reactions to it certainly are. Despite numerous and huge scientific studies validating the safety and benefits of genetically modified foods (aka GM or GMO foods), people just refuse to be convinced. Should we be surprised? Perhaps not:

The far side of the Moon is a strange, barren, monochrome place, according to the latest images sent home from China’s Yutu 2 rover. An incredible 360-degree panorama reveals just how arid and alien it is on the back of Earth’s satellite. China made history when spacecraft Chang’e 4 landed rover Yutu 2 on

Antarctic glaciers have been melting at an accelerating pace over the past four decades thanks to an influx of warm ocean water – a startling new finding that researchers say could mean sea levels are poised to rise more quickly than predicted in coming decades. The Antarctic lost 40 billion tons of melting ice

Not everything is knowable. In a world where it seems like artificial intelligence and machine learning can figure out just about anything, that might seem like heresy – but it’s true. At least, that’s the case according to a new international study by a team of mathematicians and AI researchers, who discovered that despite

This past March, a NASA instrument on the International Space Station spotted a black hole, about 10,000 light-years away from Earth, in the process of devouring a star. What happened next was weird, even by the standards of super-dense celestial objects from which not even light can escape: the black hole started to shrink.

Deeps in mines, at the bottom of lakes, and even in your own gut, bacteria are hard at work producing electricity in order to survive in environments low in oxygen. These potent little power producers have been used in speculative experiments and one day may power everything from batteries to “biohomes“. There are many

The acclaimed Nobel Prize-winning scientist James Watson will be forever remembered as one of the ‘fathers of DNA’. But also as something much worse. In a resurfaced controversy that further dims the shine of one of the 20th century’s most esteemed scientists, Watson – awarded the Nobel in 1962 for his role in the discovery

Dogs are said to be a human’s best friend – but they also provide an environmental conundrum to some of us. Altogether, the eating habits of our pets account for about 20 percent of the world’s meat and fish consumption, and this has an effect on a whole bunch of environmental issues, including the use

Like a brain, an ant colony operates without central control. Each is a set of interacting individuals, either neurons or ants, using simple chemical interactions that in the aggregate generate their behaviour. People use their brains to remember. Can ant colonies do that? This question leads to another question: what is memory? For people,

Another day, another article has misrepresented the words of a scientist. This time that article comes from the Russian state-owned website Sputnik News; according to them, a NASA scientist has revealed a “secret sign that would indicate impending apocalypse”. So just to set the record straight, we’re here to tell you that Michelle Thaller, an astronomer

Worms may not have spines, but they’re doing some back-breaking sewer work in more than 4,000 toilets across India. Since 2015, a creative new type of toilet called the Tiger Toilet has been popping up outside homes and schools around the country. From the outside, this toilet looks like any other pit latrine. But

Elon Musk has published a photo of an experimental rocket meant to help him achieve his mission of conquering Mars. After teasing the spaceship earlier this month, Musk posted a picture of the vehicle – dubbed the “test hopper” – in real life on Friday from SpaceX’s facility in Boca Chica, Texas. Starship test flight

A rocket that never runs out of fuel is ready to revolutionize space exploration. It’s called the World Is Not Enough (WINE), and instead of using fuel to power its movement, the craft mines water from its current location and turns it into steam – and uses it to propel itself to a new destination, like something out